deindustrialize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to cause to lose industrial capability or strength; make less industrial in character or emphasis.
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to deprive (a conquered nation) of the means or potential for industrial growth.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to reduce the importance of manufacturing industry in the economy of (a nation or area)
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(intr) (of a nation or area) to undergo reduction in the importance of manufacturing industry in the economy
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of deindustrialize
First recorded in 1880–85; de- + industrialize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Morgenthau’s plan to demilitarize and deindustrialize Germany was seized upon by the failing Nazi regime as a propaganda tool, and the Truman administration ultimately rejected it.
From Salon ● Mar. 25, 2026
I watched the shoreline deindustrialize from waterfront developments to pristine forests.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 3, 2019
And coming from a dead-end town in deindustrialized Pennsylvania in the ’80s, the Stains were perfectly able to understand the context of the lyrics.
From Salon ● Jan. 27, 2026
In a deindustrialized nation where an Amazon warehouse was a big economic-development win, the idea of gaining 25,000 or more high-paid jobs was a dream come true.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 6, 2023
It is, after all, no small thing to be able to see such worthy productions — and I’ve seen many here over the years — in a ragged, deindustrialized city like this one.
From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2022
Yeung had found an eager audience for his smart city pitch in Cory Mason, the Democratic mayor of Racine, a deindustrialized city with high unemployment near Foxconn’s Mount Pleasant campus.
From The Verge ● Oct. 19, 2020
There are a lot of similarities between the deindustrialized towns and cities of the Rust Belt and some of these rural areas.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2020
Knowledge work has been deindustrializing itself from its geographic constraints and offshored to the internet, where the labor is cheaper and often free.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
By century’s end, the artists themselves got priced out of their SoHo lofts — and museums themselves began to move into the old warehouses, factories and electric plants of deindustrializing cities.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2020
The black middle class had departed the inner city, and a deindustrializing economy left the remaining poor with few prospects.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 20, 2016
The route took as us through the rapidly deindustrializing Arts District, then back to Boyle Heights over the 7th Street Bridge.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2016
This is not just a moral imperative; it is also a better solution to the admittedly severe problems facing declining, deindustrializing American cities.
From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2016
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
